For Denver teenagers, the buses that never came Monday meant going on long, unanticipated walks in the dark and begging for rides from family and older friends to get to school.

Because Denver Public Schools relies primarily on RTD buses to transport high school students, principals reported higher-than-normal absentee rates as school started Monday.

By the end of the day, though, most of the stragglers had made it in, principals said.

“It was one of the longest, boredest walks I’ve ever done,” said Charles Davis, a junior at George Washington High who walked from Park Hill to the school at dawn Monday.

DPS board members in 2004 opted to get rid of yellow school buses for high school students and subsidize RTD bus passes instead. About 2,300 students citywide purchased RTD bus passes in March. There are 18,000 DPS high-schoolers.

DPS administrators are urging high school students to take yellow buses – if space is available – to elementary and middle schools, which may “get you close” to high school, district spokesman Mark Stevens said.

The district also provides transportation to physically disabled students, and there could be room on those buses to nearby high schools, Stevens said.

Right before lunch at South High on Monday, 522 students were absent, which is about 48 percent of the school’s population, principal Bill Kohut said.

Kohut said English language acquisition students, who come from all across the metro area, seemed to be the hardest hit.

“They don’t have transportation, their parents don’t have transportation,” he said. “Getting those kids here is my biggest concern.”

In teacher Sarah Cantrell’s English language acquisition class, 11 students sat at the front of the half-empty room. Typically there are 23 students in her class.

Abdi Abdulle, 18, said he had to walk almost 3 miles.

“I’m definitely going to try and get a ride home,” he said.

At East High, which had about 201 students out of roughly 2,000 miss at least one class, assistant principal Andy Mendelsberg urged teachers to get in touch with students at home via e-mail to tell them about homework.

At Montbello High, principal Antwan Wilson will open school at 6 a.m. today and have movies and chess available for students whose parents have to go to work early.

For Montbello High freshman Sophia Llamas, a long strike may mean a switch to her neighborhood high school in Aurora.

Her mother, who cleans houses, can’t take her every morning to Montbello, Llamas said.

“I’d be mad,” said Llamas, who manages the boys basketball team and is active in Young Life, an after-school Christian organization. “I wouldn’t even want to go to school.”

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